CO2 Behavior in the Atmosphere

I am having a hard time filtering the internet for good sources on climate change... maybe because I come from the place of being a sceptic but in truth I am not that educated in the subject but I do understand science (I am a chemical engineer) so I am looking to make an unbiased opinion.

My scepticism comes from all this doomsday message that is preached, it seems so easy to point to a flood or an abnormal weather event and put blame on "Global Warming / Climate Change", the fact that the message had to be re-branded from Global Warming to Climate change. Also I recall in the 90s when I was growing up that all the doomsday predictions of what they are saying is going to happen in the next 15 to 40 years was supposed to happen by 2010 (I fully acknowledge I could be totally remembering this wrong). Like my gut is telling me this is wrong and a lot of this is fear tactics sort of the 'Science" version of a religious doomsday prediction.

Enough of the rant and on to my own search for the facts... I am looking for good sources to read, if it is an article please post one that is sourced. Ok so here are my first series of questions:

1. How does CO2 behave in the atmosphere. I don't mean the greenhouse effect I understand that, I mean where is it located in the atmospher? How is it dispersed? like is it spread out, does it form a layer? Is it Evenly spread out, or does it remain concentrated, I imagine there are pockets of higher concentrations in areas of high CO2 emissions but outside of that is it pretty uniform? What range of altitude does it typically hang out in?

2. People throw around numbers of tonnage of CO2 released and the concentration crossing the 400 ppm barrier within the atmosphere (which makes it sound like lots) but no one (at least from what hear) brings up the fact the atmosphere is 78% N2, 21% O2, of the remaining 1% CO2 makes up about .04%. Seems like there is a pretty big buffer there which makes me think you would need a lot more CO2 up there to produce any real impact. Is there a good explanation for something making up so little of the atmosphere have such an impact on temperature?

3. I am curious if there have been any experiments done that take compositions that I stated above and observing changes in temperature when adding more CO2 to the system while exposing it to UV light at a similar intensity as the sun. I would really like to see if this was done because it would go a long way for myself to have an informed opinion on this.

Finally someone has twigged that 400 ppm is a TINY part of our atmosphere like 0.04% or a wineglass in a swimming pool. How can this cause catastrophic "warming" (or "change" as it is now called).Thank you for expressing what I have been feeling for a long time. Why did scientists decide to talk in ppm and not the good old % !

I hear ya, to be fair it is very common for scientists to talk concentration in ppm over percent but when you are portraying a message through the media saying something to is 400 ppm sounds like a lot bigger deal than .04% especially to the masses of people out there who don't understand what ppm really means, which is advantageous to portray the climate change message.

My questions I was asking sort of all feed into my 3rd point there... To me if someone was able to make a lab experiment with say just N2, O2, Ar shine UV light to it and record where the temperature it reaches. Then add CO2 to the system and see what happens to the temperature of the system as the CO2 concentration increases. This would work well especially if CO2 is well mixed in our atmosphere (which is why I was asking if it gathered in a layer or not) to give us an idea of what concentration levels of CO2 is actually dangerous to the planet. No doubt that CO2 can trap heat but I am actually sceptical there is enough of it up there that can do it in a significant way.

Again if someone can point me to someone's work that addresses this I would like to see it.
Edited on 10-04-2014 06:04

Okay CO2 is basically evenly distributed, even in the troposphere, stratosphere and mesosphere, The fact that it is in very small concentrations is actually important, because it's warming effect is logarithmic, the higher the concentration the less warming effect, that is why they say methane is a much more potent gas (it's not if you checkout the bandwaves of where it operates it is fairly insignificant) because it quantity is so small it is measured in ppb and if it quantity was doubled it would have a big warming effect, where as CO2 at 400ppm is basically saturated.Facts it is almost universally accepted that a doubling of CO2 (maybe by the year 2050) will give 3.7watts per sq meter which equates to 1 degree C (not too scary) so they throw in positive feedbacks, but what they dont tell you is any warming will cause those feedbacks not just from CO2, well think about it, any warming so why has'nt already happened, we have had events like the 1998 El Nino where temps spiked and water vapor went with it, but when the event was over temps and water vapor dropped like a stone (no positive feedback there)

One major contributor to excessive CO2 in the atmosphere that no one seems to address is...factory farming. Over 27 billion animals are raised and slaughtered each year. The average cow/pig/chicken poops 7-15 times per day; this is a lot of methane; in fact, studies say that factory farming contributes to 51% of greenhouse gas contributed by man in the atmosphere. Did you know nearly half of all the water used in the United States goes to raising animals for food? Potable water makes up 3% of the Earth's surface, and we wasting it on livestock. Hypothetically speaking, if everyone went vegan this instant, our planet would reduce over 70% of the man-made contribution to climate change over the next 10 years. According to the United Nations, raising animals for food (including land used for grazing and land used to grow feed crops) now uses a 30 percent of the Earth's land mass. More than 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared to create cropland to grow grain to feed farmed animals, and according to scientists at the Smithsonian Institution, the equivalent of seven football fields of land is bulldozed worldwide every minute to create more room for farmed animals. Sure, burning coal and driving cars is also a major contributor, but factory farming is by far the largest contributor to CO2 in the atmosphere. How do you think we could change these statistics without attempting to achieve the impossible (ending factory farming)?

I am having a hard time filtering the internet for good sources on climate change... maybe because I come from the place of being a sceptic but in truth I am not that educated in the subject but I do understand science (I am a chemical engineer) so I am looking to make an unbiased opinion.

My scepticism comes from all this doomsday message that is preached, it seems so easy to point to a flood or an abnormal weather event and put blame on "Global Warming / Climate Change", the fact that the message had to be re-branded from Global Warming to Climate change. Also I recall in the 90s when I was growing up that all the doomsday predictions of what they are saying is going to happen in the next 15 to 40 years was supposed to happen by 2010 (I fully acknowledge I could be totally remembering this wrong). Like my gut is telling me this is wrong and a lot of this is fear tactics sort of the 'Science" version of a religious doomsday prediction.

Enough of the rant and on to my own search for the facts... I am looking for good sources to read, if it is an article please post one that is sourced. Ok so here are my first series of questions:

1. How does CO2 behave in the atmosphere. I don't mean the greenhouse effect I understand that, I mean where is it located in the atmospher? How is it dispersed? like is it spread out, does it form a layer? Is it Evenly spread out, or does it remain concentrated, I imagine there are pockets of higher concentrations in areas of high CO2 emissions but outside of that is it pretty uniform? What range of altitude does it typically hang out in?

2. People throw around numbers of tonnage of CO2 released and the concentration crossing the 400 ppm barrier within the atmosphere (which makes it sound like lots) but no one (at least from what hear) brings up the fact the atmosphere is 78% N2, 21% O2, of the remaining 1% CO2 makes up about .04%. Seems like there is a pretty big buffer there which makes me think you would need a lot more CO2 up there to produce any real impact. Is there a good explanation for something making up so little of the atmosphere have such an impact on temperature?

3. I am curious if there have been any experiments done that take compositions that I stated above and observing changes in temperature when adding more CO2 to the system while exposing it to UV light at a similar intensity as the sun. I would really like to see if this was done because it would go a long way for myself to have an informed opinion on this.

Sorry for the long post just looking for a more informed opinion.

Cheers

1) CO2 becomes well mixed within the atmospheric column with time. It is heavier than "air" but is mixed by turbulence. Water vapor is not well mixed because it's localized consentration is temperature dependent.

2) The absorption of infrared radiation is what enables the greenhouse effect. High in the troposphere where water vapor is scarce because of the cold, CO2 takes on a lead roll in IR absorbtion. At consentrations near where CO2 is currently present, a doubling of CO2 will prevent 3.7 watts of radiant energy from immediate escape to space on a percistent basis. So, going from 280ppm to 560ppm will increase the radiative forcing as measured from the tropopause by 3.7W/m^2 which equates to a Planck (black body) temperature response of just less than 1.2C per doubling of CO2. That's 0.3C per watt.

3) The radiative forcing (3.7W/m^2/2X CO2) strengthens the greenhouse effect sustained by that amount. The greenhouse effect works by slowing the loss of thermal energy to space thus leaving the surface warmer than it otherwise would be. CO2 (greenhouse effect) does not add heat to the system, it reduces the loss of heat to space. The net affect is the same, the temperature will by higher by 1.2C at thermal equalibrium with the radiative forcing. That thermal equilibrium can take decades to be reached since a long time is required to warm up the oceans which warm the atmosphere above.

tmb2610 wrote:Finally someone has twigged that 400 ppm is a TINY part of our atmosphere like 0.04% or a wineglass in a swimming pool. How can this cause catastrophic "warming" (or "change" as it is now called).Thank you for expressing what I have been feeling for a long time. Why did scientists decide to talk in ppm and not the good old % !

The percentage of the total atmosphere is irrelevant because the Nitrogen and Oxygen which comprise most of the atmosphere do not act as greenhouse gases. They may as well not be there at all. CO2 absorbs no more or no less due to their presence.

Or even www.ipcc.ch. That's probably the best source of information on the topic. You're a chemical engineer, you should have no problem understanding anything in the entire document. It's divided into sections (Working Groups). Given your queries, you might want to start with the report of Working Group 1 (WG1), The Physical Science Basis.

Davros wrote: If you need honest answers look at skepticalscience.com and search for CO2

No one should ever turn to skepticalscience.com for answers. SkepticalScience is neither skeptical nor is it science. It is mainstream Global Warming religion through and through, dishonestly billing itself as the absolutely scientific TRUTH, the LIGHT and the WAY.

It's all crap. Anyone moderately versed in physics won't be able to get very far through it without noticing the unreconcilable violations of physics and the sheer reliance on faith in unfalsifiable dogma.

If you need honest answers, turn to a physics textbook.

Global Warming: The preferred religion of the scientifically illiterate.

Ceist - I couldn't agree with you more. But when money and religion are involved, and there are people who value them above all else, then the lies begin.- trafn

You are completely misunderstanding their use of the word "accumulation"!- Climate Scientist.

The Stefan-Boltzman equation doesn't come up with the correct temperature if greenhouse gases are not considered - Hank

:*sigh* Not the "raw data" crap. - Leafsdude

IB STILL hasn't explained what Planck's Law means. Just more hand waving that it applies to everything and more asserting that the greenhouse effect 'violates' it.- Ceist

Well, you should doubt and you should learn your science and get your terms straight. No substance can trap thermal energy. All thermal energy, regardless of substance, radiates away freely at a rate dependent upon the temperature. All a negligible amount of thermal energy (absolute zero cannot be attained), regardless of substance, will radiate away if not replaced.

Heat is the flow of thermal energy. If thermal energy is flowing, it certainly isn't trapped.

Ditch the Global Warming theology.

ratzmoose wrote: but I am actually sceptical there is enough of it up there that can do it in a significant way.

There is plenty of nitrogen. Nitrogen absorbs its own electromagnetic signature. Nitrogen definitely warms in sunlight. Why don't we have a runaway nitrogen-induced "greenhouse effect"?

Answer: There is no such thing as the "greenhouse effect."

Global Warming: The preferred religion of the scientifically illiterate.

Ceist - I couldn't agree with you more. But when money and religion are involved, and there are people who value them above all else, then the lies begin.- trafn

You are completely misunderstanding their use of the word "accumulation"!- Climate Scientist.

The Stefan-Boltzman equation doesn't come up with the correct temperature if greenhouse gases are not considered - Hank

:*sigh* Not the "raw data" crap. - Leafsdude

IB STILL hasn't explained what Planck's Law means. Just more hand waving that it applies to everything and more asserting that the greenhouse effect 'violates' it.- Ceist

No one should ever turn to the IPCC for information. They have none. All the IPCC offers is political activism and religious propaganda laced with dishonest semantics and fabricated data.

Abraham3 wrote: That's probably the best source of information on the topic.

It's the best propaganda government funding can buy.

Abraham3 wrote: You're a chemical engineer, you should have no problem understanding anything in the entire document.

No credentials are needed to understand the entirety of the dumbed-down fear-mongering that is written for the broadest audience of the lowest common denominator. Nothing in any IPCC propaganda requires any thinking because that's the last thing the IPCC wants anyone doing. The IPCC gears all its publications to its preferred audience of gullible dupes. Those who are not as gullible are already not reading IPCC dogma anyway.

Abraham3 wrote: Given your queries, you might want to start with the report of Working Group 1 (WG1), The Physical Science Basis.

You have to be particularly gullible to not realize there is no falsifiable scientific theory at the end of all this fear-mongering for which all this haphazard propaganda will serve as a "basis." The IPCC never formulates a falsifiable Global Warming model based on any of the "bases" they claim to have compiled. It is stunning how anyone could overlook such a glaring omission.

Global Warming: The preferred religion of the scientifically illiterate.

Ceist - I couldn't agree with you more. But when money and religion are involved, and there are people who value them above all else, then the lies begin.- trafn

You are completely misunderstanding their use of the word "accumulation"!- Climate Scientist.

The Stefan-Boltzman equation doesn't come up with the correct temperature if greenhouse gases are not considered - Hank

:*sigh* Not the "raw data" crap. - Leafsdude

IB STILL hasn't explained what Planck's Law means. Just more hand waving that it applies to everything and more asserting that the greenhouse effect 'violates' it.- Ceist

"No one should ever turn to the IPCC for information. They have none. All the IPCC offers is political activism and religious propaganda laced with dishonest semantics and fabricated data. "

Prove it! Show us all exactly *how* you came to this conclusion!

"It is stunning how anyone could overlook such a glaring omission"

It is more stunning that anyone could not believe in the existence of greenhouse gases! This is a very well known, basic scientific concept. Find me one physicist who states that there is no such thing as a greenhouse gas...

Funny video! I agree completely about your comment on extreme doubt. There is nothing wrong with being sceptical, but point blank denial and closed mindedness are not healthy.

arthur18 - I wouldn't exactly call Harry Dale Huffman a physicist. Sure, he has a Masters degree in physics from 1976, but as far as I can tell, he has no PhD, no affiliation with any university or research institute of any kind, and no peer reviewed published papers in scientific journals. He has written a few books. The thing is - if he was right, and there was no greenhouse effect on Venus, and he could prove it, then he would have no problem getting published in Nature or Science. He only publishes books because he is unable to publish his theory in a scientific journal, because his explanation does not stand up to the rigorous scrutiny of peer review.

The other thing to consider is that he claims to be an 'independent scientist'. Since he is not associated with any research institute, he will not be eligible to apply for research funding from the normal streams. This raises the question - what research exactly is he doing? And also, how is he funding his research? Carrying out research is costly. You have to pay to attend international conferences (which are important for learning about other current and new research, as well as getting your research known, and maintaining international collaborations), you have to pay to publish your research in journals, if you are a modeller you need to pay for access to a supercomputer and for file storage space, and if you are an experimentalist, you have to pay for all the equipment you need to carry out the experiments in your lab. All of these costs are typically paid by the research grant, which you have to apply for. I seriously doubt that he is able to fund all of this, plus a salary for himself, from the sales of his books. Therefore in my view, he is not a practicing physicist, he is a writer with a physics education/background.

If you know of any practicing physicists (e.g. scientists who have current research affiliations) who disagree with the concept of a greenhouse gas or the greenhouse effect, then I would be very interested in knowing more.

climate scientist wrote: I agree completely about your comment on extreme doubt. There is nothing wrong with being sceptical, but point blank denial and closed mindedness are not healthy.

Let me guess, the line is drawn at disagreeing with your viewpoint. Or maybe the line is drawn at requiring you to provide actual science.

climate scientist wrote:arthur18 - I wouldn't exactly call Harry Dale Huffman a physicist. Sure, he has a Masters degree in physics from 1976, but as far as I can tell, he has no PhD, no affiliation with any university or research institute of any kind, and no peer reviewed published papers in scientific journals.

Science doesn't require any credentials whatsoever. Why do you believe it does?

Religion, on the other hand, absolutely requires titles and stature. Which were you talking about?

climate scientist wrote: The thing is - if he was right, and there was no greenhouse effect on Venus, and he could prove it, then he would have no problem getting published in Nature or Science.

Wrong. Publications are run by religious zealots such as yourself who will do everything they can to bury anything and anyone who "denies" Global Warming. He might have sent them a manuscript and they probably threw it in the trash saying "We don't entertain drivel from denier trolls!"

climate scientist wrote: The other thing to consider is that he claims to be an 'independent scientist'.

Yup, and that means he's neither a gullible dupe who fell for the scam nor a complete sellout of his values to protect the precious funding that comprises his livelihood.

climate scientist wrote: This raises the question - what research exactly is he doing?

Good catch! If the grant's desired predetermined conclusions are not what are being purchased then what good could he possibly be up to?

climate scientist wrote:If you know of any practicing physicists (e.g. scientists who have current research affiliations) who disagree with the concept of a greenhouse gas or the greenhouse effect, then I would be very interested in knowing more.

Bullchit! You have shown that you are clearly not interested in listening to any of the science that runs counter to your dogma. You are obviously lying to imply otherwise.

Global Warming: The preferred religion of the scientifically illiterate.

Ceist - I couldn't agree with you more. But when money and religion are involved, and there are people who value them above all else, then the lies begin.- trafn

You are completely misunderstanding their use of the word "accumulation"!- Climate Scientist.

The Stefan-Boltzman equation doesn't come up with the correct temperature if greenhouse gases are not considered - Hank

:*sigh* Not the "raw data" crap. - Leafsdude

IB STILL hasn't explained what Planck's Law means. Just more hand waving that it applies to everything and more asserting that the greenhouse effect 'violates' it.- Ceist

I must say I am very disappointed in the fact that you made absolutely no comment about the science Dale Huffman proposes, instead you seem to be questioning his understanding of science. He has a simple theory, yet you have not made a single comment on the actual theory. You claim that"he is not a practicing physicist, he is a writer with a physics education/background", if that is the case then I presume you should be able to at least comment on his version of the science and possibly find what laws of physics he has violated or any errors made.

You said " Find me one physicist who states that there is no such thing as a greenhouse gas..." well I have and now you are making all sorts of excuses as to why he does not qualify as a physicist.I expected better from a so called scientist.

While I can't say I'm a great admirer of Dale Huffman or anyone else who, like he, self-proclaims themselves to be the "discoverer of the astounding world design behind all the ancient mysteries," I do think that he is a very highly educated person who does make some interesting (albeit not all correct) points. But then again, who has ever always been correct? Einstein flunked out of college three times, yet he went on to be one of the greatest physicists in history. And then there's the 19th century physician Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis who laid down the foundation for modern antiseptic technique, yet he died penniless and insane because it would take several decades after his death for anyone in the medical community to admit that he was right.

My point here is that even if something seems grossly false, there is still often some true and possibly useful facets to be found within it. Whole sale sweeping away of ideas which do not 100% completely satisfy a particular viewpoint is possibly one of the most mind limiting things that we can do. Thus, I applaud you for introducing Mr. Huffman into this discussion.

I am sorry that you were disappointed with my response, as this was not my intention. In my defense, you did not specify that you would like my opinion on his work. I am happy to oblige you and look into his work in detail, but I will need some more time in order to do this properly.

I am having a hard time filtering the internet for good sources on climate change... maybe because I come from the place of being a sceptic but in truth I am not that educated in the subject but I do understand science (I am a chemical engineer) so I am looking to make an unbiased opinion.

My scepticism comes from all this doomsday message that is preached, it seems so easy to point to a flood or an abnormal weather event and put blame on "Global Warming / Climate Change", the fact that the message had to be re-branded from Global Warming to Climate change. Also I recall in the 90s when I was growing up that all the doomsday predictions of what they are saying is going to happen in the next 15 to 40 years was supposed to happen by 2010 (I fully acknowledge I could be totally remembering this wrong). Like my gut is telling me this is wrong and a lot of this is fear tactics sort of the 'Science" version of a religious doomsday prediction.

Enough of the rant and on to my own search for the facts... I am looking for good sources to read, if it is an article please post one that is sourced. Ok so here are my first series of questions:

1. How does CO2 behave in the atmosphere. I don't mean the greenhouse effect I understand that, I mean where is it located in the atmospher? How is it dispersed? like is it spread out, does it form a layer? Is it Evenly spread out, or does it remain concentrated, I imagine there are pockets of higher concentrations in areas of high CO2 emissions but outside of that is it pretty uniform? What range of altitude does it typically hang out in?

2. People throw around numbers of tonnage of CO2 released and the concentration crossing the 400 ppm barrier within the atmosphere (which makes it sound like lots) but no one (at least from what hear) brings up the fact the atmosphere is 78% N2, 21% O2, of the remaining 1% CO2 makes up about .04%. Seems like there is a pretty big buffer there which makes me think you would need a lot more CO2 up there to produce any real impact. Is there a good explanation for something making up so little of the atmosphere have such an impact on temperature?

3. I am curious if there have been any experiments done that take compositions that I stated above and observing changes in temperature when adding more CO2 to the system while exposing it to UV light at a similar intensity as the sun. I would really like to see if this was done because it would go a long way for myself to have an informed opinion on this.

Sorry for the long post just looking for a more informed opinion.

Cheers

Hi ratzmoose,

May I suggest reading the very well referenced Prof Spencer Weart's "The Discovery of Global Warming" on the American Institute of Physics website for a good overview of the how the science behind the 'greenhouse' effect developed over the past 150 years or so. It's also available as a textbook.

If you don't want to read a textbook on atmospheric physics but want some understanding about the significance of CO2, there is a great website called "Science of Doom" that is very helpful on working step by step through the physics in a very readable way for lay people:

Kano wrote:Okay CO2 is basically evenly distributed, even in the troposphere, stratosphere and mesosphere, The fact that it is in very small concentrations is actually important, because it's warming effect is logarithmic, the higher the concentration the less warming effect, that is why they say methane is a much more potent gas (it's not if you checkout the bandwaves of where it operates it is fairly insignificant) because it quantity is so small it is measured in ppb and if it quantity was doubled it would have a big warming effect, where as CO2 at 400ppm is basically saturated.Facts it is almost universally accepted that a doubling of CO2 (maybe by the year 2050) will give 3.7watts per sq meter which equates to 1 degree C (not too scary) so they throw in positive feedbacks, but what they dont tell you is any warming will cause those feedbacks not just from CO2, well think about it, any warming so why has'nt already happened, we have had events like the 1998 El Nino where temps spiked and water vapor went with it, but when the event was over temps and water vapor dropped like a stone (no positive feedback there)

CO2 at 400 ppm is not 'basically saturated'

Try reading this 2011 article published in Physics Today where this is addressed on the 4th page: